We Need to Cut Carbon Emissions Without Killing Economic Growth

Douglas Holtz-Eakin

The growth of the economy picked up in 2017 and the Congressional Budget Office is predicting an even-faster growth of 3.2 percent for this year. One reason is that the Trump Administration has undertaken a dramatic shift toward deregulation. The costs of complying with regulatory fiat from Washington bureaucrats, which had climbed at a steady rate in excess of $100 billion annually for nearly a decade, was essentially flat in 2017.

Yet there is one area where future administrations will be especially keen to re-regulate: carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency is legally required to regulate them.